Botched Homebound Placement

[jamhunt009]

We are in North Carolina. I experienced a traumatic injury in April of 2009 and it was necessary to move my family to Durham for safety and medical reasons for the remainder of the school year. Our school district agreed to place my children on Homebound so that they would be able to complete their school year without any academic loss. My son’s Homebound went well (he is at a different school than his sister as he is in 2nd grade and she is in the 12th grade) my daughter’s Homebound placement was botched by the district. As you know, a child is to be marked present while they are on Homebound. However, my daughter was marked absent over 40+ days and the teachers as well as counselors say they didn’t know she was on Homebound. My daughter received all failing grades for the end of the term. She has never had an F. She just took the SAT and will start applying for schools but we cannot send her transcript off in this condition. The school accepts no responsibility for the mix up and the district office keeps trying to pass the buck back to the school. Now the school wants my daughter to do a bunch of busy work to make up for their error concerning the Homebound so she can recover her grades for last semester on top of her already full schedule. She received her report card recently and her grades are suffering as a result of all of the stress she has been put under due to the district error made last semester. I have met with the school principal and the guidance counselor. I have called the district Homebound supervisor and was told that my wife and I had to remedy the problem with the school. I am concerned that my daughter will miss out on scholarship opportunities as a result of this gross error. Is there any action that I may take against the school district for the harm they have caused my daughter academically as well as the undue hardship that has been placed on my family as a result?

 

[GaAtty]

GaAtty

If you are asking if you can sue the school, the answer is no, because they have immunity from these sort of things. I wonder if you are confusing "homebound" with "home schooled". I cannot understand how she can be "homebound" and no one know it, because when a student is "homebound", the school sends teachers to the house. Those teachers have to keep a record of when they come and see your student. Regardless, if you can find a special education attorney or civil rights attorney, they can probably get this straightened out.

 

[jamhunt009]

Homebound

She was placed on Homebound along with her brother which attends a different school. The district informed the sibling's school and failed to effectively inform my daughter's school. The district did not provide a homebound teacher for my daughter or son. They sent the work to us to be completed for my son and said that my daughter would come in over the summer to spend time with a homebound teacher that they would provide. We did take her back to complete her EOCs during the summer with a Homebound teacher, however, they did not provide anyone for her to spend time with over the summer nor did they give her any work to complete. Until this matter is resolved we cannot apply for colleges as my daughter was given all Fs last semester as a result of the district error. I got a copy of her transcript last week and she has always done well as eveidenced by her transcript. We simply cannot allow her to apply to colleges until this matter is resolved and the Fs are removed. She had As and Bs in the classes when we relocated to Durham. By the way, we had to relocate to Durham from Lumberton (about 1.5 hrs away) in April due to a traumatic injury and saftey concerns. The district wanted to help by allowing our children to go on Homebound rather than withdraw them so late in the year. The district created this problem with my daughter's grades and I feel it is only right that they correct the matter in a way that is in the best interest of my daughter. At this point, they have told her that she complete a number of assignments (12 page research paper, 100 problem Alg. II work, and the other assignments are yet to be determined). My daughter has always carried honors classes and her grades this semester are now suffereing due to the stress of this Homebound screw-up. We met with the principal and he was going to contact the superintendent for direction. I will let you all know what we hear.